A Beginner's Guide to Structure Blog Post URLs | BlogPlatforms.app

If you don't follow the practices here, it may be possible for Google to index a page differently than you thought. (We’ll discuss that later)

You link to another article in one of your posts. Later, you realize the link targets a URL other than Google has indexed. 

If rankings on search engines are your concern, you should either change the link’s address to the address of what Google indexed or manually remove that page from Google search results. If you are dealing with many pages, such as an e-commerce website, fixing that would take you many hours.

You can watch the official answer.

URL is the abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially known as a web page’s unique address.

A URL has different parts: protocol, domain, TLD, subdirectory, slug, and URL parameters.

The part after the TLD (Top Level Domain) is customizable by you (if you are the registrant of that domain), and the main topic of this article is how you should customize that.

Almost all of us have mobile phones. A mobile phone has a unique phone number similar to a website’s URL. It is difficult to remember phone numbers; thus, we save a phone number with a proper name, such as whose it belongs. After, when we try to call a friend in the contact list, the mobile device calls the number of that friend. 

This is similar to a website such as the one you are reading. A website's actual address consists of several numbers that we call IP numbers. IP numbers are also difficult to remember, like mobile phone numbers. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could save those IP numbers with a proper name? Yes, and we are doing that. Actually, browsers do that for us in the background.

The main difference between those two situations is to whom those records are available and accessible. 

A contact with a name and a phone number exists only on the registered device. 

Moreover, the record that holds the domain name and the IP number it points out is globally available. 

How browsers know the IP number of any domain is the topic of public DNS (Domain Name System) resolver and is out of this article's scope.

The first thing to understand is the ideal pattern for a blog post URL. 

At a higher level, you have two options to structure your blog post URLs:

• Flat URL structure
• Hierarchical URL structure (Top-down or Pyramid)

According to an official answer from Google, using a hierarchical URL rather than a flat one seems more beneficial. 

It helps you to keep semantically related content together. By doing that, you signal a message to the crawlers. This helps search engines understand the context of the post better.

Moreover, separating blog posts according to their categories allows you to create different content silos for different topics. Even free blogging platforms support that feature.

A content silo is a method of grouping related content together on your website to establish the site's keyword-based topical areas or themes. Think of it as organizing your website into different sections or "silos," each dedicated to a specific topic. This structure helps search engines understand the themes of your site, and it also enhances user experience by making navigation easier.

In other words, content silos may play a role in being an authority on different topics. 

Another question is coming.

One of the four pillars of search engine optimization (E-E-A-T) is being an authority (A) on the topic you want to rank for. It means more than just knowledge.

People with authority on a specific topic are trusted and influential people on that topic.

They consistently provide value to others through their expertise. 

This concept is also known as topical authority. 

The term refers to the level of expertise or credibility a website or content creator has on a specific subject matter. It's like being the go-to source for information on that particular topic. The concept is rooted in the idea that search engines, like Google, favor sites that provide comprehensive and reliable information on specific topics. 

By consistently grouping related content under specific category slugs, you're showing search engines that you have multiple pieces of content revolving around this topic. This can help to establish your site as an authoritative source on that subject.

If you need deeper knowledge about that, I suggest you read these two articles:

• Topical Authority for SEO: What it is and How to Build It
• Importance of Topical Authority for SEO

Considering the benefits I mentioned above, I can say that a hierarchical URL structure is better.

When you categorize your blog posts and insert the category’s slug between a post slug and the domain, separated by a slash, you can face a duplicated content issue.

In other words, a post with multiple categories is not a rare scenario. This causes content duplication.

To prevent content duplication, you must use the canonical address method.

For a given post with multiple categories, you choose one of them as the canonical address and use that one in all versions of that post. By doing that, you tell Google to index only the canonical address and ignore others.

Before proceeding, I must mention one very important term: slug.

What is a slug?

Slug is a part of the URL and makes a page distinct from another. The human-readable and URL-normalized version of the given text can be a category name or a post title. The blogging platform you choose generally automates this text process but can be changed manually. 

For instance, in "www.example.com/books/fiction," the slug, 'books/fiction,' is composed of the signified versions of the category and the product names.

Yes, using keywords in URLs is a ranking factor. On the other hand, according to Google Search Advocate John Mueller, it has a very lightweight effect.

This means we will mention the keyword in the slug. 

In general, the post slug is auto-generated by your blogging platform. If it is auto-generated, you’ll see that the slug of the post is based on the title of the post. It is a common practice also.

The more important part is how you customize that slug, either based on the title or not. 

When structuring the URLs of your blog posts for optimal performance in search engine optimization (SEO), it is important to follow a set of best practices that make your URLs more readable and relevant to both users and search engines. 

To apply these practices, your blogging platform must support a category and tag system. Otherwise, you can check the blogging platforms that support the category system.

Here are some guidelines to structure your blog post URLs effectively:

Use Descriptive Keywords

Incorporate the primary keyword related to your blog post into the URL to explain the post. This helps with SEO and gives users an idea of what to expect before they click the link.

Keep it Simple and Specific

Aim to keep your URL structure simple, short, and precise. Although the URL length does not affect rankings, avoiding long and complex URLs would be nice. By following this practice, you can focus on the most important keywords that capture the essence of your blog post.

Use Hyphens to Separate Words

Even though it doesn't affect rankings which one you prefer, to enhance readability, use hyphens rather than underscores to separate words within your URL. You 

Avoid Unnecessary Words

Trim stop words like "and," "or," "but," "the," etc., as they add unnecessary length and don't contribute much to search engine understanding.

Utilize Lowercase Letters

URLs are case-sensitive by definition. Although it is possible to use all upper case, all lowercase, or maybe mixed case, it's a standard practice to use all lowercase letters in URLs to avoid confusion.

Omit Special Characters

Special characters and symbols can make URLs look cluttered and can cause issues with some browsers and servers. Use letters without the diacritical version. Stick to letters and numbers only if that number makes sense where possible.

Exclude Dates and Numbers

Unless they're integral to the content, avoid including dates and excessive numbers, making your URL unnecessarily long and less evergreen.

Avoid Keyword Repetition

Don't overuse keywords in the URL, as this can look spammy and may not be beneficial for SEO.